The Grave Tattoo (24 page)

‘Honestly, Dan, you love a good conspiracy, don’t you?’ Jane led the way into the kitchen, where Judy was trying to make sense of a pile of invoices at the table. ‘Mum, this is my friend Dan.’

‘We’ve already introduced ourselves,’ Judy said. She pushed the papers together and stood up. ‘Come and sit down, Dan. I was just waiting for Jane to get back to dish up the dinner.’ Over her shoulder, she said to Jane, ‘Your dad’s gone over to Borrowdale to look at a ram. He wants some new blood in the herd. So it’s just the three of us.’ She took a pie from the oven and put it on the table, followed by a dish of roast potatoes and another of mashed swede.

‘Wow,’ Dan said. ‘Do you eat this well at every meal?’

‘Yup,’ Jane said, serving up the pie to Dan and herself. ‘My mother tries to bribe me to stay by feeding me up.’

Dan tasted the steak pie. ‘Oh God, Mrs Gresham, this is heaven on a plate.’

‘Thank you, Dan, it’s always a pleasure to have a guest who appreciates his food. You’ll be stopping, I take it?’ Judy smiled encouragingly.

Dan nodded, chewing frantically before he spoke. ‘If that’s all right. I was going to go back tomorrow, but now…well, I can stick around for a few days to help Jane.’

‘We’ve got interviews to do.’ Jane smiled grimly. ‘I’ve managed to make some progress where I least expected to. It turns out Matthew knew all along where to find Dorcas Mason’s descendants. He just didn’t bother telling me. Diane asked me to get something from the dining room, and there it was, sitting on the dining table. Two substantial chunks of Dorcas Mason’s family tree. Courtesy of Matthew’s class who are doing a project on genealogy,’ she said, her voice clipped to a sharp edge.

‘What wonderful luck, love,’ her mother said, the warmth of her voice belying the anxiety in her eyes. ‘And how nice of Matthew to sort them out to show you.’

Jane sighed deeply. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘But I need to go and see Bossy Barbara again. What I’ve got isn’t complete and I think she’ll be able to help me fill in the gaps. I’ll give her a ring after lunch and see when she’s free.’

‘Be still, my beating heart,’ Dan said.

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Jane said. ‘At least now I get the chance to show you some of the countryside. We can go up on the fell and I’ll show you my dad’s sheep.’

Dan looked down at his designer trainers. ‘Whoopee. I can hardly wait.’

‘You can borrow a pair of wellies. You’ll love it,’ Jane said.

‘And then can we go and look at Dove Cottage?’

Jane nodded happily. ‘Yes, we can. And if you’re a very good boy, I’ll introduce you to Anthony Catto, the greatest living expert on Wordsworth.’

Dan pretended to look afraid. ‘Great. Now I can be exposed for the literary fraud I am.’

Jane laughed. ‘Don’t worry, he won’t eat you. I promise you, Dan, you’re going to have a visit you won’t forget in a hurry.’

24

‘Stop the car, I’m going to be sick.’ There was no arguing with the urgency in Dan’s voice. Jane pulled on to the narrow grass verge, hitting the hazard lights as the car drew to a halt. Even before she had completely stopped, Dan had the passenger door open and he was stumbling out of the car. Almost immediately Jane heard him retch and cough. She leaned across the passenger seat and, by the dim light of the car’s interior lamp, she could see him bent double and heaving.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, realising as she said it how fatuous a question it was.

‘Oh God,’ he panted, staggering upright and leaning against the car. ‘I thought one of those mussels tasted funny’

‘God, Dan, I’m so sorry’

‘Not your fault,’ he groaned, falling back into his seat. ‘Can’t blame you if the fucking chef can’t tell when his seafood’s off.’

She handed him her water bottle. ‘Have a drink.’

Dan took a couple of sips and shuddered. ‘Sorry’ He wiped his face with the back of his hand. ‘Christ, I feel like shit.’

‘You need to go to bed. I’ll drop you back at the farm then I’ll go and see Barbara by myself.’

‘But I want to hear what she has to say,’ he protested feebly.

‘You’ll hear all about it in the morning. Trust me, you don’t want to be in Barbara’s house if you’ve got an upset stomach. It’s a shrine to air freshener. I swear the only time she gets aroused is when she sees an advert for a new product. “Make your home smell forest fresh with a battery-operated fan-assisted air-purifying gel,” and she’s slavering. One breath in there and you’ll be heaving. No, best if you take care of yourself. It’ll be nice and quiet–Mum and Dad have gone out to a silver wedding do in Grasmere, they won’t be back till late.’

‘No, I don’t want to go back to the farm. Take me to the pub, I’ll stay there instead. They’ll have an
en suite
room. I don’t want to be disturbing everybody, getting up in the night to be sick or whatever. And I don’t want to feel self-conscious and embarrassed. Take me to the pub, Jane.’

‘Don’t be daft, Dan. You don’t want to be staying at the pub. It’s too noisy, you’d get no peace. It’ll be fine, nobody’s going to make you feel embarrassed about being ill.’

His face crumpled. ‘It’s not about you or your parents. It’s me. I just feel self-conscious, I’d rather be in the pub.’

‘No. You’re not going there.’ Jane was adamant, her face firmly set. ‘I’ve got a better idea. We’ve got a holiday let up the hill. It’s empty just now. You can stay there. You’ll have all the peace and quiet you need and you can make as much noise as you want. I don’t think the sheep will mind. And your bag’s in the boot already from when we picked it up after lunch.’

‘OK, I haven’t got the strength to argue,’ Dan said weakly, pulling the door closed and winding the window down. ‘Promise me you’ll drive slowly.’

Jane set off at little-old-lady speed, driving through Fellhead and up the lane past the farm, trying to ignore Dan’s groans. Half a mile further up the Langmere Fell, she pulled into a narrow driveway. ‘This is it,’ she said.

Dan followed her into a squat stone building whose single storey was divided into a bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom. He made straight for the bathroom while Jane turned on the heating, made up the bed and unlocked the small cupboard where Judy kept a stock of teabags, coffee sachets, sugar and toilet rolls. She knocked on the bathroom door when she was done. ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said.

‘Thanks,’ Dan groaned. ‘I’m sorry.’

It was a fine evening so Jane dropped the car off at the farm and walked back down to Fellhead. Barbara was waiting for her, whisking her straight through to the nerve centre of her genealogy project. ‘No wonder we couldn’t find her if she got married in Yorkshire,’ she said, making it sound as if Dorcas had moved to Tahiti. ‘Not to mention the incorrect spelling. But with this much to go on, it should be a piece of Black Forest gateau. Now, let’s get started.’

It was almost ten when Jane emerged, clutching a sheaf of computer print-outs. A skein of low cloud had obscured the moon while she’d been with Barbara, turning the night gloomy. A stranger would have struggled to negotiate the lane up to the farm, but sure-footed in the darkness Jane made her way along the familiar route without a second thought.

Thanks to Barbara, she now had a full family tree for Dorcas. Perhaps in the morning she could go through it with Dan, assessing which of the surviving family members was most likely to have the manuscript. It would be helpful to have another pair of eyes on the closely printed material. And, selfishly, she was glad to have someone around to occupy her. Since Dan had arrived, she realised, she hadn’t thought once about Geno Marley’s murder.

Rigston’s dream incorporated the strains of Jan Hammer’s ‘Crockett’s Theme’. It took a few seconds for him to realise the sound was real, that his mobile was ringing. He struggled up from sleep, reaching for the phone on the bedside table. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his other hand. ‘DI Rigston,’ he said. There was a pause, during which he pushed himself upright. ‘Why me? Can’t this wait till the morning?’ he sighed. ‘OK, let me get a pen.’ He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and walked naked to his leather jacket. He wrestled a pen and notebook from the inside pocket and sat down on the end of the bed. ‘OK, let me have the details…How are you spelling that? OK…Uh huh, I’ll call DI Blair…Right…Fellhead? It’s going to take me a good hour to get over there. OK, tell the Super I’m on my way.’ He ended the call and made a rueful face at River.

‘I’m really sorry, love. I’ve got to go out.’

She squirmed down the bed and stroked his back.

‘Don’t worry, I get it. In your job, there’s no such thing as off duty.’

He shivered at her touch then dialled the number the duty officer had given him. ‘DI Blair?’ he said when the call was answered. ‘This is DI Rigston in Keswick.’

‘You’re going to check on Jane Gresham for me, is that right?’ The woman sounded harassed.

‘Happy to oblige. I’m presuming there’s no reason to suppose this…’ Rigston checked his notes ‘…Tenille Cole is going to cut up rough?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. She’s got no form, but she’s got connections.’

‘Connections?’

‘Her dad runs the Marshpool–one of our charm schools for criminals. He’s a hard man. A serious villain. Word is she doesn’t have direct dealings with him, but given that she’s wanted for blowing a man away with a sawn-off shotgun then firing the flat to cover her tracks, I’d say the word is well off the mark.’

Rigston felt a chill that was nothing to do with the temperature in his bedroom. ‘You think there’s any chance she’ll be tooled up now?’

‘No. I think she panicked and ran. I don’t think she’d be headed for Jane Gresham if she had the security of a gun.’

‘And you don’t think her dad’s up here keeping an eye out for her?’

Donna Blair laughed. ‘Not his style.’

Rigston felt uneasy, but he was prepared to take the word of someone whose sharp end was a lot more jagged than his. ‘OK. I’m going out there now. I’ll keep you posted.’ He ended the call and turned to River. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘“Tooled up?” Did I hear right?’ River said, her grey eyes troubled.

‘Apparently not,’ Rigston said. He pulled a rugby shirt over his head. ‘Let’s hope the Met got this one right, eh?’

The cloud was his friend, reducing both visibility and the desire to stand around enjoying the night sky. He’d only seen a few people coming and going from the pub in the past hour and he was damn sure they hadn’t even noticed his car, never mind that there was a driver at the wheel. He’d been prepared to move out if he’d been spotted. Risks were for fools and he was no fool. Besides, there would be other opportunities to deal with the obstacle she’d become. Unsuspecting victims were the easiest to pick off; he knew that from experience. But he’d been lucky. Nobody had seen him, least of all the one person he was interested in.

She’d come walking out of the house without a sideways glance, as if she had too much on her mind to pay attention to anything outside herself. He’d waited for her to enter the lane before he’d started the engine, giving her a full minute’s head start, steeling himself for what he had planned. He crept slowly down the village street from his vantage point, then turned into the lane.

The full beam of the headlights picked her out, a black silhouette against the hedgerow. He took a deep breath and dropped down into second. The engine screaming, he slammed his foot hard on the accelerator and aimed for Jane.

The roads were quiet. By nine on a Saturday in the Lakes, most people were either home in front of the telly or ensconced where they planned to spend the rest of the evening. As Rigston drove he picked over his grievance at being dragged from his bed. Other people’s villains. The last thing he needed. At least the female DI from the Met had had the decency to warn him there was media interest in this one.

He couldn’t help thinking about his own daughter. Not so far off the age of this murder suspect. He wanted to believe that sort of thing couldn’t happen on his patch but he knew it wasn’t true. He thought of Dewsbury. Quiet little town in the middle of West Yorkshire. A place where nothing much ever happened. Yet within the space of a couple of months, the cops in Dewsbury had to deal with a teenage girl abducting a five-year-old and hanging him from a bloody tree, and a suicide bomber blowing up a tube train in London. Used to be that sort of thing only happened in big cities with a seething underclass. But he knew the poison was spreading and he feared for his own child.

And this particular teenager wasn’t without resources. A gangster father in the shadows wasn’t a negligible consideration. In a world made small by motorways and electronic communication, crime wasn’t a prisoner of its own patch any longer. A man could be eating dinner in London while the hit he’d ordered on his mobile was taking place in Manchester. Or, Rigston supposed, in the Lakes. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

Rigston swung the wheel round and turned into the lane leading to the Greshams’ farm. He saw a distant set of tail-lights disappear up ahead, then he braked suddenly as he saw a body sprawled by the side of the road.

Rigston pulled up and jumped out of his 4×4, calling out, ‘I’m a police officer. Are you all right?’ Nothing. Not a sound, not a movement. Rigston hurried forward, slicing the body into segments of dark and light as he passed in front of the headlamps.

As he crouched down to examine it, the body pushed itself up on one elbow. A young woman looked up at him, mud smeared down one side of her face. Her eyes were wide with shock, her hair tangled with leaves. ‘Were you chasing that mad bastard?’ she gasped.

‘No, all I saw were some tail-lights. What happened?’ He reached out a hand to steady the woman as she got to her feet.

‘A car. Coming up the hill way too fast.’ She shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘And then…’ She frowned, looking incredulous. ‘I know this sounds crazy, but it was like he steered straight at me. I had to dive into the hedge.’ She rubbed her shoulder. ‘I think there’s a bit of wall in there too.’

‘Probably a drunk,’ Rigston said. ‘Did you get a look at the car? Make? Registration?’

‘No. I was dazzled by his headlights. And then I was in the hedge.’ She brushed herself down.

‘With no ID, there’s not much point in me calling it in,’ Rigston said with a sharp exhalation of irritation.

‘At least I’m still in one piece.’

‘Have you far to go?’

‘No.’ The woman gestured to her left. ‘I live in the farm just ahead.’

Rigston frowned. ‘Are you Jane Gresham?’

She took a step away from him. ‘How do you know my name?’